PM SVANidhi scheme offers micro-credit to street vendors | Fusion - WeRIndia

Apart from daily labourers and migrant workers, street vendors were also affected severely due to COVID-19.

The pandemic affected the livelihoods of many people. Though big businesses could recover from the situation, many small businesses lost their livelihood.

As street vendors have limited capital, it was almost impossible for them to recover from the losses they incurred.

In this context, the government of India launched a scheme to help street vendors in the country in 2020. The scheme, PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), was launched as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan.

The scheme intends to provide micro-credit to street vendors to meet their working capital needs.

As part of the PM SVANidhi scheme, street vendors can get a loan of up to ₹10,000 at low-interest rates. This collateral-free loan aims to help them resume their business.

So far, around 48,000 street vendors got benefitted from the scheme. However, the scheme targets to benefit around 50 lakh street vendors in the country.

Here are some details of the PM SVANidhi scheme:

Borrowers should repay the loan within a year. Those who pay the loan promptly without fail can avail of ₹20,000 in the next cycle. After that, they can get a loan of ₹50,000. Thus, the scheme encourages street vendors to repay the loan without fail and aims to benefit more people.

The borrowers can get the loan at a subsidized interest. If they repay the loan early, they can get an interest subsidy at the rate of 7%. The amount will be credited to their bank account directly every quarter.

Those who want to obtain a loan shall have an identity card or certificate of vending issued by urban local bodies.

As the scheme promotes digital transactions, those who perform digital transactions will be incentivized with cashback offers. For instance, they can get cashback of up to ₹1,200 per annum.

Image from Maxpixel (Free for commercial use / CC0 Public Domain)

Image Reference: https://www.maxpixel.net/Fruit-Vendors-Street-Hawker-Vendor-India-Hubli-272613